Malus sylvestris (Linnaeus) Miller
crab apple
north-western Europe
Only where a record specifically mentions crab apple (or ‘crab’) in the generic
sense can it be taken to relate to apple trees of the kind most likely to be native
to the British Isles and thus alone available before the sweet cultivated kinds
were introduced (though that was well before Roman times, according to the
latest authoritative opinion). Of such records there are only three, and two of
them Irish: one a vague and unlocalised one of the use with buttermilk for a
relaxed throat and hoarseness,^249 the other from Sligo of a treatment for
internal cancer^250 (boiling the leaves and drinking the juice). The sole British
record involved the juice, too: for bruises in Suffolk.^251
More often, the kind of apple is not identified, leaving it to be assumed
that any variety will serve (including those of the cultivated and introduced
Malus pumila Miller). Not all apples with small, sour fruits are the true crab
apple (M. sylvestris), and forms or derivatives ofM. pumila may have some-
times stood in for that in folk usage. However, as it is the acid juice that is
valued for some of the purposes featuring in folk medicine, a preference in
these cases for kinds possessing that in the fullest and most powerful degree
can be inferred. William Withering found what country people called ‘ver-
juice’ was used extensively on recent sprains^252 (but unfortunately failed to
say in which part of England that was). In the East Riding of Yorkshire a piece
of the fruit rubbed on a wart is reputed to turn it black and eventually cause
it to drop off,^253 so strong is the astringency.
No less prized for their ability to soothe have been hot poultices of rotten
apples. Applied to ‘any sore places’ in Norfolk,^254 these have been a treatment
for earache in Wiltshire,^255 small boils in the East Riding of Yorkshire^256 and
‘rheumatism in the eye’ in some area(s) unspecified.^257 According to this last
source, decoctions of the flowers or fruit were also once used by young
women as an astringent cosmetic. The sole record that can be added to that
list is an application in Antrim to chilblained toes.^258
Sorbus aucuparia Linnaeus
rowan, mountain ash
Europe, south-western Asia, Morocco; introduced into North America,
New Zealand
As a tree with much magico-religious lore attached to it in the Gaelic-speak-
ing parts of the British Isles (in the uplands of which it is also commonest),
154 Malus sylvestris